What are the pros and cons of each? I’ve seen slow paced (non hustle) countries being romanticized , but personally I struggle in such places.
What are your thoughts? Where are you now and is it slow/fast paced? What do you like there?
What are the pros and cons of each? I’ve seen slow paced (non hustle) countries being romanticized , but personally I struggle in such places.
What are your thoughts? Where are you now and is it slow/fast paced? What do you like there?
I’m American but have previously lived in France and now in the UK. Industry is tech/consulting.
The US (particularly the Silicon Valley where I worked) is extremely fast paced. It’s an unforgiving place that requires constant hustle, showmanship and ‘up and to the right’ mentality. The glass ceiling is so high in SV tech companies but VC firms have become increasingly stringent in funding rounds which puts pressure on KPIs and deliverables. It’s incredibly exciting and I often felt I was helping to create the ‘thing of the future’ but the pace of work was ultimately too demanding for me. I regularly worked 60 hour weeks, the company paid for breakfast, lunch and dinner because that was expected and it was all consuming. Pay was amazing though.
France was almost the complete opposite. A 35 hour week was standard and colleagues adhered to this stringently. We had 33 days PTO + 11 national holidays each year. Companies essentially shut down for most of August as everyone went to the seaside. 2 hour lunch breaks was common and we almost always had wine. Parents would often go pick up their kids from school during lunch break and cook for them before coming back. That said, as an American, it felt like everyone was coasting and that no one cared about entrepreneurship or innovation. Going above and beyond / pushing the limits was seen as a bad thing and I felt decreasingly motivated about work due to the ‘it is what it is’ mentality.
The UK (particularly London) feels like it has one foot in North American culture and one foot in European culture. I still get a ton of PTO (30 days + 10 bank holidays) and the work day is a standard 40 hours on average. The tech scene feels exciting for Europe, but nowhere near the same levels entrepreneurship or innovation as California. It feels like a healthy mix of work and play, people are motivated when in the office, but they actually turn off when outside the office. If only the pay was better it’d be the perfect working conditions for a driven person.
Thank you for sharing this and mentioning UK. I am always interested in countries that have a bit of both. Having lived there how do you find the quality of life and weather?
The weather itself is fine. It doesn’t get super cold (rarely snows) and doesn’t get super hot except for a couple heat waves. I’m from California and got used to the temperature fairly quickly.
The worst thing is the constant gloom and darkness. It’s very often overcast so you feel you never get the sun and many people supplement with vit D. And the winters are pretty bad due to the short days. London’s latitude is higher than nearly every major North American city (on par with Calgary) so the sun sets around 3-4pm for months at a time.
is pay good for the likes of Amazon, Meta in London at least?
I know a majority of France works like this but there are some very cut throat work fields. I’m not saying this to oppose or prove you wrong but just to offer a perspective. My husband works with a lot of companies and start ups. While his colleagues usually stick to 35h work week, he refuses to leave the office before 8pm. And that’s him slowed down. Before it was 9, 10, 11… he travels frequently and goes back to work in the morning even if he arrived late at night. He pushes, pushes and pushes… sometimes accepts meetings with Americans at 9pm. After he gets back home already late, he spends around half an hour wrapping up and replying emails. Takes calls on weekends, public holidays and he hasn’t stopped working during our vacations. Yes, we take a month long time off during August but the poor thing works through it. I had to wait for him for an hour by the pool so that he can finish a call or an email to join me so many times. It’s unthinkable for him and his goals to manage his life any other way. But he’s extremely dissatisfied because he says that his projects gets shut down for small silly reasons, his bosses don’t respect his hustle and some of the higher ups are straight incompetent and some expect more from him but more in terms of things that you can easily overlook for an overachiever like him. They don’t appreciate his enthusiasm at all and weigh him down with small stupid dysfunctional stuff.
In our friends group, a guy founded his own tech start up and works on an even crazier schedule than my husband. He almost cannot function outside work. His wife has her own wellness brand and she takes appointments with her clients for 12h straight sometimes and travels once a month to offer her services elsewhere too.
Another lawyer friend started his own firm and I’ve witnessed him pulling 2 all nighters in a row.
Interesting thing is that, employers will expect results that can only be produced by people who work with this rhythm but shot down any efforts if anyone is working at this speed because those employees will also be highly demanding support, flexibility, responsiveness and compensation. I see those people as small groups of vigilantes trying to make it work in a hostile environment.